Mashpee Wampanoag confident about casino plan despite hurdles

While some questions remain unanswered in the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe’s quest to build a casino in Taunton, its chairman is optimistic that the project is on track.“This is going to have a great economic impact on southeastern Massachusetts and the city of Taunton,” Mashpee Wampanoag Trib...

While some questions remain unanswered in the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe’s quest to build a casino in Taunton, its chairman is optimistic that the project is on track.

“This is going to have a great economic impact on southeastern Massachusetts and the city of Taunton,” Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Chairman Cedric Cromwell said. “We’re far ahead of any other competitor in the commonwealth.”

The tribe has hit several benchmarks, including reaching a host community agreement with Taunton last year, but some have questioned whether the Mashpee are heading down a dead-end road. The tribe, which got federal recognition in 2007, currently lacks the sovereign land necessary to build a tribal casino.

The Mashpee have a land-in-trust application pending with the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs. Cromwell says he expects to hear back from the bureau by the end of this year or in the first quarter of 2014.

The BIA did not respond to requests for comment before press time.

“We have not been told anything negative about our land-in-trust application,” Cromwell said.

To get the sovereign land they need to build a tribal casino under federal law, the Mashpee will must overcome the Supreme Court’s 2009 Carcieri v. Salazar decision, which essentially states that only tribes under federal jurisdiction before 1934 are eligible to have land taken in trust. The Mashpee argue that although they weren’t federally recognized until 2007, they were under federal jurisdiction prior to 1934.

“Certainly we look forward to hearing from the solicitor on the Carcieri analysis,” Cromwell said.

State Rep. Robert Koczera, D-New Bedford, who has been vocal in his support of the state Gaming Commission’s decision to seek commercial casino proposals in southeastern Massachusetts, said he doesn’t see a resolution to the land sovereignty question coming anytime soon.

“Right now they’re going through the land-in-trust process, which despite what tribe says, is very tedious,” Koczera said. “I think that process takes a good couple of years, and the Supreme Court decision basically suspends that into limbo.”

Meanwhile a tribal gambling compact, which would govern the terms of operation of a tribal casino in Massachusetts, remains in the Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies following a May 15 legislative hearing.

“What was very clear is the chairpeople overwhelmingly, unequivocally support the compact,” Cromwell said.

Legal counsel for the Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies did not respond to a request for comment before press time.

The second version of the compact, which was signed by the tribe and Gov. Deval Patrick after the federal government rejected the terms of the first compact, calls for the tribe to pay the state 21 percent of its gross gaming revenue for as long as it has the only casino in Massachusetts. That share decreases once other gambling facilities open in the state and drops to zero if another casino opens in the southeastern region.

Page 2 of 2 - “The compact certainly has many reasons in the hundreds of millions of dollars range for the commonwealth to want to support it,” Cromwell said.

Koczera, a House member of the Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies, said he doesn’t expect the compact will be taken up until fall or early next year. A number of pressing issues such as transportation funding, welfare reform and the state budget have occupied lawmakers’ attention, he said.

“This compact has no sense of urgency,” Koczera said. “It’s like a car without an engine without land in trust.”

Cromwell, though, said he is “excited land in trust is on its way.”

“A Mashpee Wampanoag resort casino is poised to be very successful,” he said. “I’m excited about the relationship and partnership with the city of Taunton.”